Report to the General Board of Health on a preliminary inquiry into the sewerage, drainage, and supply of water, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants of the town of Exmouth / by Thomas Webster Rammell, Superintending Inspector.

  • Rammell, Thomas Webster.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report to the General Board of Health on a preliminary inquiry into the sewerage, drainage, and supply of water, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants of the town of Exmouth / by Thomas Webster Rammell, Superintending Inspector. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    very full attendance of the influential and ^respectable inhabit- ants. Amongst these. were the Rev. S. J. Rocke, vicar of Exmouth; the Rev. J. W. T. Lee, incumbent of Withycombe; Sir Henry Browne; Mr. W. Cole Cole; Mr. W. H. Hull; Mr. T. M. Eustace; Mr. W. H. George; Dr. Kane; Mr. Trenchard, solicitor; Messrs. Spettigue, Waters, Land, and Ward, surgeons; and Messrs. Winsor, Bastin, and Sheppard, tradesmen in the town. Before assembling, a copy of resolutions relating to the objects of the inquiry, and adopted at a large and general meeting of the inhabitants on the 29th of January preceding, and also a list of offensive drains and nuisances in the town, draAvn up by a committee of twenty-four gentlemen named at this meeting, had been presented to me by Sir Henry Browne. I opened the proceedings by proving the due publication of the notices, and shortly explaining the course I intended to adopt in conducting the inquiry; and I then commenced hearing evidence upon the various subjects to be elucidated. In the afternoon I proceeded, in company with many gentlemen who had been present at the meeting, personally to inspect those quarters of the to\vn which had been represented as being in the worst sanitary condition; and I may here state that I have never yet seen human habitations more utterly devoid of the precautions necessary for the preservation of health and cleanliness—more crowded, dark, close, filthy, and loathsome, than those in the part called South To^vn, and in one or two of the neighbouring streets. It was not without some surprise that I found such pestiferous; abodes in a town resorted to by invalids for the recovery of ; health, and in close proximity with the dwellings of the opem and airy quarter they inhabit. I continued the inquiry during the two following days, the- 6th and 7th of February, devoting the mornings to the hearing: of evidence, and the afternoons to a further inspection of the ■ town or an examination of the surrounding country. I received the testimony of the following witnesses, viz.:— 1. William Staple Winson, builder. 2. Thomas Manston Eustace, private gentleman. 3. Samuel Blackmore, waywarden of Withycombe. 4. Elizabeth Dyer. 5. William Henry Land, surgeon; Medical Officer of Little- ham. 6. William Brutton, master mariner. 7. Thomas Hall. 8. Elizabeth Daniel. 9. Sarah Webster. 10. Henry Branscombe, builder. 11. John Spettigue, surgeon.